Accessing disease information via smartphones: A senile macular degeneration investigation in over-65-year-old patients

İbrahim Ethem Ay 1, Yiğit Şenol 2, Aynur Er 1, Hamidu Hamisi Gobeka 1 * , Mustafa Doğan 1
More Detail
1 Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Medicine, Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
2 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
* Corresponding Author
J CLIN MED KAZ, Volume 20, Issue 3, pp. 38-43. https://doi.org/10.23950/jcmk/13317
OPEN ACCESS 929 Views 667 Downloads
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

Aim: To investigate how frequently over-65-year-old senile macular degeneration (SMD) patients use smartphones and the Internet for disease information, as well as to evaluate website readability and information quality.
Material and methods: There were 400 SMD patients who were followed up on at a retina clinic. SMD was defined as the presence of >5 hard drusen or >1 125 μm soft drusen in the macula, and scar or subretinal fluid compatible with SMD. Face-to-face interviews were used to gather demographic data, including age, gender, educational level, smartphone use, and whether patients researched SMD in Google, YouTube, or other websites. Two experienced ophthalmologists blindly evaluated 32 Google websites and 37 YouTube videos using Ateşman and Bezirci-Yilmaz readability formulas, as well as JAMA and DISCERN indexes.
Results: The average age of the patients was 75.0±6.6 years, and 37.3% owned a smartphone. Legally blind patients (40.5%) used smartphones less frequently for Internet searches (p<0.001). As educational level increased, patients became more active in searching diseases electronically. The JAMA score in texts was 0.8±0.4, while it was 0.7±0.6 in videos (p=0.654). The DISCERN score was 35.1±6.2 and 33.2±10.3 in texts and videos, respectively (p=0.347). Smartphone use decreased with age (OR=0.896, 95% CI: 0.859-0.934), but not with legal blindness (OR=0.756, 95% CI: 0.458-1.245).
Conclusion: Improved quality and reliability of internet websites and video information, more emphasis on informative audio recordings and videos for people with low vision, and easily readable Internet websites could all have a positive impact on patients' adherence to treatment.
Keywords: Google, information, internet, readability, senile macular degeneration, smartphones, youtube videos

CITATION

Ay İE, Şenol Y, Er A, Gobeka HH, Doğan M. Accessing disease information via smartphones: A senile macular degeneration investigation in over-65-year-old patients. J CLIN MED KAZ. 2023;20(3):38-43. https://doi.org/10.23950/jcmk/13317

REFERENCES

  • Kruse CS, Mileski M, Moreno J. Mobile health solutions for the aging population: A systematic narrative analysis. J Telemed Telecare. 2017;23(4):439-451. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357633X16649790
  • Khosravi P, Rezvani A, Wiewiora A. The impact of technology on older adults' social isolation. Comput Hum Behav. 2016;63:594–603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.092
  • Lu MC, Kotelchuck M, Hogan VK, Johnson K, Reyes C. Innovative strategies to reduce disparities in the quality of prenatal care in underresourced settings. Med Care Res Rev. 2010;67(5):198S-230S. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558710374324
  • Detmer D, Bloomrosen M, Raymond B, Tang P. Integrated personal health records: transformative tools for consumer-centric care. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2008;8:45. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6947-8-45
  • US Census Bureau. The Next Four Decades: The Older Population in the United States: 2010 to 2050. 2010. p. 10.
  • Anderson G, Horvath J. The growing burden of chronic disease in America. Public Health Rep. 2004;119(3):263-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phr.2004.04.005
  • He W, Goodkind D, Kowal P. An Aging World: 2015. Washington: Department of Health and Human Services-National Institutes of Health; 2016.
  • Kim K, Park SY, Kang HC. Smartphone proficiency and use, loneliness, and ego integrity: an examination of older adult smartphone users in South Korea. Behav Inform Technol. 2021;40:625–634. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1713213
  • Badarudeen S, Sabharwal S. Assessing readability of patient education materials: current role in orthopaedics. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2010;468(10):2572-25780. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11999-010-1380-y
  • Szmuda T, Özdemir C, Ali S, Singh A, Syed MT, Słoniewski P. Readability of online patient education material for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19): a cross-sectional health literacy study. Public Health. 2020;185:21-25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2020.05.041
  • Search Engine Market Share; Net Applications: Newport Beach, CA, USA. [(accessed on 10 October 2019)];2013 Available online: https://netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx.
  • Alexa. The top 500 sites on the web. 2022: https://www.alexa.com/topsites.
  • Statista. Hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute as of February 2020. 2020.
  • Statista. Percentage of adults in the United States who use selected social networks as of September 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/246230/share-of-us-internet-users-who-use-selected-social-networks/.
  • Infographics, G. M. I-YouTube User Statistics 2021. https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/.
  • Mangan MS, Cakir A, Yurttaser Ocak S, Tekcan H, Balci S, Ozcelik Kose A. Analysis of the quality, reliability, and popularity of information on strabismus on YouTube. Strabismus. 2020;28(4):175-180. https://doi.org/10.1080/09273972.2020.1836002
  • Oydanich M, Shah Y, Shah K, Khouri AS. An Analysis of the Quality, Reliability, and Popularity of YouTube Videos on Glaucoma. Ophthalmol Glaucoma. 2022;5(3):306-312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ogla.2021.10.002
  • World Health Organization. International statistical classification of diseases, injuries and causes of death, tenth revision. Geneva, 1993. Quoted from vision 2020 the right to sight global Initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness: action plan 2006-2011. [Accessed on: April 25, 2016]. http://www.who.int/blindness/Vision2020_report.pdf
  • Ateşman E. Türkçede okunabilirliğin ölçülmesi (Measuring readability in Turkish). Dil Derg. 1997;58:71–74.
  • Bezirci B, Yılmaz AE. Metinlerin okunabilirliğinin ölçülmesi üzerine bir yazılım kütüphanesi ve Türkçe için yeni bir okunabilirlik ölçütü (A software library for assessing text readability and a new readability criterion for Turkish). DEÜ Fen ve Mühendislik Derg. 2010;12(3):49–62.
  • Silberg WM, Lundberg GD, Musacchio RA. Assessing, controlling, and assuring the quality of medical information on the Internet: Caveant lector et viewor--Let the reader and viewer beware. JAMA. 1997;277(15):1244-5. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1997.03540390074039
  • Charnock D, Shepperd S, Needham G, Gann R. DISCERN: an instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1999;53(2):105-111. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.53.2.105
  • Scantlebury A, Booth A, Hanley B. Experiences, practices and barriers to accessing health information: A qualitative study. Int J Med Inform. 2017;103:103-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.04.018
  • Eng TR. The eHealth landscape: A terrain map of emerging information and communication technologies in health and health care. 2001.
  • Kim BY, Lee J. Smart Devices for Older Adults Managing Chronic Disease: A Scoping Review. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2017;5(5):e69. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.7141
  • Menéndez Álvarez-Dardet, S., Lorence Lara, B., & Pérez-Padilla, J. Older adults and ICT adoption: Analysis of the use and attitudes towards computers in elderly Spanish people. Computers in Human Behavior. 2020;110(1–8):106377. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106377
  • Creber RMM, Reading M, Hiraldo G, Iribarren SJ. Review and analysis of existing mobile phone applications to support symptom monitoring and self-management for adults with heart failure. J Card Fail. 2016;22(8):S81.
  • Richtering SS, Hyun K, Neubeck L, Coorey G, Chalmers J, Usherwood T, Peiris D, Chow CK, Redfern J. eHealth Literacy: Predictors in a Population With Moderate-to-High Cardiovascular Risk. JMIR Hum Factors. 2017;4(1):e4. https://doi.org/10.2196/humanfactors.6217
  • Kloosterboer A, Yannuzzi N, Topilow N, Patel N, Kuriyan A, Sridhar J. Assessing the Quality, Content, and Readability of Freely Available Online Information for Patients Regarding Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Semin Ophthalmol. 2021;36(5-6):400-405. https://doi.org/10.1080/08820538.2021.1893761